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Daniel
Asked: 2011-06-13 15:35:42 +0800 CST

Dual Controller SAN 8x1GBE or 4x10GBE Performance

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I'm looking at getting 3 hosts and a SAN set up with iSCSI for a VMware envoroment and have had several companies come to us with suggestions (small team and will need help with implementation). They have suggested an IBM setup using 2x 4 port 1GBE iSCSI cards on the SAN which is a DS3524 and then running a Cisco 2960S stack using 6 connections per host.

I went away and came back with a solution (for the same price) using 2x 2 port 10GBE iSCSI controller SAN which is a Dell 3620i using a Cisco 2960S stack with 2x 10GBE ports each and using 8 connections per host for improved performance. They can't match this in terms of price and have suggested the IOPS would be less in this configuration due to less channels on the SAN controllers (8x1GBE vs 4x10GBE). Are they talking rubbish to try and get a sale? Couldn't find much online but wanting to make the right decision.

I can post the full hardware specs of this solution if required.

virtualization performance storage-area-network iscsi

1 Answers

  1. Best Answer

    Let's see 8 x 1Gb is 8Gb... 4 x 10GbE is 40Gb.... now... those controllers are probably active passive, which means its really 4Gb vs 20Gb. They're blowing smoke up your ass.

    To same some additional money, check out the Dell 6224 switches, you can stack them AND add two 10Gb ports to each and will probably smack the Cisco around on price. That leaves you 24 ports one each switch for iSCSI for VMware hosts.

    have you looked at the equallogic PS6010 for SAN? or is that out of your price range?

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